Well, then you've obviously got more hours than little ol' me! (SEL-IFR)
I don't suppose you spent much time talking about this with too many of the TWA folks. I hear at least some of the have quite a few misgivings about this. I haven't talked to any of them myself but I have talked face to face with the Eastwind PIC who was opposite direction at 15,000 (or something like that), PVD to TTN. In fact I spoke with him on three separate occasions, once for over an hour. He told me all the FBI folks, who questioned him the day after, were interested in was that he didn't see a missile. He also told me he didn't see a missile. This was after the CIA made its cartoon, but before the NTSB got to him a year or two later. We talked about why he might not have seen a missile (high speed of the missile and poor cockpit visibility downward) and I guess enough of what we talked about made an impression on him because if you look at his NTSB interview transcript, you will see that he points this out.
Now you and he and I all know that he was the single best situated person (along with his co-pilot, who wasn't looking out when TWA 800 exploded) to know whether TWA 800 gained altitude when it was stricken. (McClaine was staring at TWA 800 from its liftoff from JFK because TWA 800 was the reason ATC was denying him direct-TTN.) McClaine was emphatic when I asked him about TWA 800 gaining altitude. "Noooooo way," he said drawing out the O's.
But the CIA wasn't interested in talking to him. They just made their little cartoon. Do you know any other "accidents" where the FBI and the CIA, or either, got involved? There's a reason the government creates disinformation. (That's what the CIA cartoon was.) And it isn't pretty.
As for your "no evidence of impact," there is actually evidence of impact though, of course, the same government that made the cartoon essentially controls the evidence. If you look at analysis of maps of the debris field, I believe you will see some evidence. As for the missile itself, Sanders says he has evidence. I actually don't think that much of Sanders but he does say what he says. Again, the government controls all the recovered evidence.
And you don't just have some people who say they saw a streak, or streaks, of light in the sky, you also have the ATC radar images brought forth by Salinger, and at least one photograph that just happens to have a white streak where a white streak should be. My understanding is that the government confiscated the original(s). Doesn't any of this bother you? And really it wasn't just "some" people, it was several hundred disparate people largely telling a consistent story.
I could go on, of course.
ML/NJ
My wife’s uncle was a TWA 747 guy based out of JFK and had his misgivings about the investigation. I believe that both the FBI and CIA were involved in the Egypt Air Crash. I was also in the Navy, and I find all the conspiracy theories that involve the USN to be nonsense. There is just no way that the USN could fire that type of missle in that situation and have everyone keep quiet.
Besides all that, the conclusions that the investigation came up with were quite realistic. The conclusion in this case are much firmer than the conclusions in the 737 U.S. Air Crash in Pittsburg or the United 737 crash in Colorado Springs. The FAA made several changes to operating procedures as a result of this investigation: changes that involve the center wing tank and the resetting of circuit breakers.
I just don’t buy the conspiracy theories out there.